


I Can't Move Until You Show Me

by dontyou



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/F, Ghost Sex, Personal Growth, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-07-10 10:55:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15947909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dontyou/pseuds/dontyou
Summary: It probably shouldn't surprise Shane that she’s a bit disappointed by this new Ryan, who shrugs off the buzzing of the spirit box like it’s nothing the second the cameras stops rolling. Nonetheless, she’s a bit embarrassed. Here’s Ryan, exhibiting personal growth, more confident and stable than Shane has ever seen her, and Shane feels bizarrely rejected. What an asshole she is, disappointed because she has to work a little harder to make fun of her friend. It’s still not exactly difficult—her crazy theories are still intact, as is her absurdly affected narration voice—but one of the purest joys of Shane's life for the past two years has been watching Ryan's eyes get all wide and shocked at the sound of creaking doors, and these joys are fewer and farther between now.Change is difficult, that’s all. Give Shane a few months and she’ll get used to Ryan this way. She’ll stop wondering what Ryan’s thinking all the time, what she’s doing when she bows out of after work drinks, what she thinks of Shane. She’ll get over it soon.





	I Can't Move Until You Show Me

Shane doesn’t notice for a week or two, too wrapped up in adjusting to shooting a new season, but by the third episode she can't deny it any longer: something is wrong with Ryan. Well, maybe _wrong_ isn’t the most fair word. Ryan is different. She’s kind of like the nerdy girl in a movie who comes back from summer vacation with a slightly different haircut and then all the sudden the camera goes slo-mo when she walks. In fact, Ryan does have a slightly different haircut, and Shane does occasionally imagine her walking in slo-mo, but the problem is bigger than Shane's overactive imagination or lazy storytelling in film. And besides, if one of them were the plain, nerdy girl, it would undeniably be Shane. So really the whole metaphor falls apart pretty quickly.

Still, something is definitely up with Ryan. For one thing, ever since they did that makeover video, she’s been dressing less like an anonymous jock. At least twice a week she wears shoes that are neither dumb sneakerhead purchases nor ghost hunting boots. She has this one shirt that is both a rich plum color and the correct size. It’s a button up, and she even has it pinned to fit around the boobs without pulling—every time Shane has tried to do that, she pricked herself and bled all over her shirt, and still wound up with a weird-fitting shirt, so she usually just buys everything a size up. It’s very disorienting for Ryan of all people to master the button-up shirt.

Ryan’s shoulders are looser, the bags under her eyes are smaller, and she’s been spending less time with Shane. Not that those things are related. They still sit next to each other at work and occasionally bring each other coffee and snacks, so it isn’t like Ryan is pissed at her. She just ducks out on after-work drinks sometimes, or doesn’t text back for hours and hours. Maybe she joined a new softball league or is going extra hard at the gym or something. 

It hits Shane one day while she’s anxiously checking her texts to see if Ryan wants her to bring her a burrito: their whole vibe has been thrown off. Somehow they've switched places so that Shane’s the one tiptoeing around afraid and self-conscious, while Ryan kicks back and chills out. It’s unnatural, to put it mildly. Ryan ought to have her eyes just bugging out of her head all the time, while Shane leans casually against a fence like some kind of merry huckster.

Nervous doesn’t sit well on Shane. Usually she only ever gets anxious and weird when she has a crush on someone, and as that certainly doesn't apply to this situation, she can only assume Ryan has finally found some kind of occult spell or prayer to a cryptid to swap their energies. Implausible, to say the least, but somehow more believable than the alternative.

Well, fuck it, no cryptid bastard is going to get Shane down. She buys Ryan the burrito, plunks it down on her desk, and says, "Ryan, I'm onto you."

Ryan's eyes widen nervously. Shane takes in the sight like a woman dying of thirst. Ryan says, "As usual, I have no idea what you're talking about," but it’s obvious she felt caught out in some way.

She eats the burrito, though. Shane watches her the whole time from the corner of her eye, even though Ryan eats burritos with a revoltingly impatient efficiency, like a snake devouring its prey whole. Shane would say so, but then she'd have to admit she was watching, and these days that feels like a weird admission. A month ago, she would have stared Ryan down and narrated it like a nature documentary. Now she sighs and returned to her inbox, trying to pay no attention to the oddly even-keeled Ryan sitting next to her.

 

* * *

 

They’re in some hick town most of the way to Sacramento investigating a restaurant supposedly haunted by a soldier who frequented the place. Ryan goes through the details, but at this point in her tenure as a ghost hunter, Shane finds they all tend to run together. She grumbles to herself about the game of mad libs they could make of all these haunted places, swapping out the same ten characters and motivations in endless combinations for every hotel, bar, restaurant, or other place of business in the country. Anything you can use to sell a t-shirt, right?

Ryan ignores Shane's comments, introduces the two of them to the soldier or any other ghost that might be hanging around, offers her sympathy, and asks if the ghost is interested in talking. She waits in respectful silence for a response, while Shane tries covertly to make suspicious noises that might make Ryan lose her shit. Neither of them get what they’re looking for.

After a while, the spirit box comes out to spit meaningless static in the air so Ryan can work herself into a frenzy. They’re shooting in an underground storeroom, camera aimed at the one corner not full of decidedly uncreepy industrial cleaning and kitchen supplies. On camera, the space looks like an eerie, empty basement: brick walls, concrete floors, and long shadows. Off camera, it’s really just a big supply closet.

The spirit box hisses and garbles, Ryan twisting up her face as she tries to make sense of it. "Was that a name?" she asks, after the box goes _fffffffleh_. 

"Yeah, my first grade teacher was named Fffffffleh," Shane says. 

That at least earns Shane a chuckle. They go on for another few minutes, but _fffffffleh_ is the best they’re getting out of the spirit box, so Ryan concedes defeat and they start packing up. While they work, they argue about which fast food joint they should get food from on their way to the motel. Ryan seems cheerful and unshaken, loudly demanding cheeseburgers.

"Think outside the BUN, Ryan," Shane says, as she’s taken to doing every single time Ryan doesn’t suggest Taco Bell. Never let it be said Shane is too intimidated to run a joke into the ground.

Ryan rolls her eyes fondly, weird shadows and _fffffffleh_ long forgotten.

It probably shouldn't surprise Shane that she’s a bit disappointed by this new Ryan, who shrugs off the buzzing of the spirit box like it’s nothing the second the cameras stops rolling. Nonetheless, she’s a bit embarrassed. Here’s Ryan, exhibiting personal growth, more confident and stable than Shane has ever seen her, and Shane feels bizarrely rejected. What an asshole she is, disappointed because she has to work a little harder to make fun of her friend. It’s still not exactly difficult—her crazy theories are still intact, as is her absurdly affected narration voice—but one of the purest joys of Shane's life for the past two years has been watching Ryan's eyes get all wide and shocked at the sound of creaking doors, and these joys are fewer and farther between now.

Change is difficult, that’s all. Give Shane a few months and she’ll get used to Ryan this way. She’ll stop wondering what Ryan’s thinking all the time, what she’s doing when she bows out of after work drinks, what she thinks of Shane. She’ll get over it soon.

 

* * *

 

At the next happy hour, Ryan graces the group with her presence, crowding in around the too-small table with everyone else. They’re barely on their second round when one of the interns starts razzing Ryan for staring at her phone the whole time.

Ryan blushes, which sets everyone off. _Oohs_ and _ahhs_ , who's the lucky guy, all of that stuff. Shane joins right in, poking Ryan's hot cheek and asking if Father Thomas is finally returning her sexts. The voice she uses for Father Thomas isn't accurate, per se, but everyone at the table but Ryan seems to find it pretty entertaining.

"I'm not dating anyone," Ryan insists, with the vehemence of someone who absolutely is dating someone and doesn't want to share, which of course just made the group more vicious in their search for truth. A few minutes later someone wrestles Ryan's phone away and scrolls through her Tinder before going quiet and apologetic, handing Ryan back her phone. "It's OK, man," Ryan says. "It's not really a secret." Which is how Shane finds out Ryan’s been dating girls.

Shane grabs a napkin off the table and begins systematically shredding it. Ryan watches her do it. Everyone watches her do it. She hasn't contributed to the conversation in like ten minutes and she’s very aware what her silence tacitly amounts to. She just isn't capable, at the moment, of doing otherwise.

Straight girls can be attractive in a momentary way, but Shane has never in her life had an honest-to-God crush on one. As soon as their preference is clear, Shane's interest disappears. It’s like finding out someone is a Republican or a vegan—just not cute. But conversely, as soon as she finds out a girl is into girls she has a tendency to get a bit flustered. This is usually useful—when you have a small dating pool, it helps to be into anyone who might plausibly be into you. At the moment, useful isn't the word she would use to describe it.

Every minute she sits there ripping up a stupid napkin is a minute Ryan thinks Shane is mad at her, somehow. For not telling her sooner, for mackin' on girls Shane could be mackin' on, who knows. This might be a new, easygoing Ryan, but basically no one could feel supported by Shane's current actions. _You're being such an asshole_ , she thinks to herself, but it just makes her more focused on the napkin. She really wishes bar napkins weren’t so small.

She manages to find enough ways to manipulate her torn up napkin to occupy herself until everyone’s ready to leave, to her great relief. On her way out to her car Ryan stops her with a hand to her shoulder. "Hey, Shane, is everything OK?" 

She looks genuinely concerned, and something about the tenderness in her expression makes this whole situation even more regrettable. Shane gives Ryan a bro-slap on the back. "Happy for you, slugger," she says. The merry huckster she used to be watches from nearby, wincing.

Lucky for her Ryan is a terrible detective. Her eyes narrow like she’s perceiving a clue, but she clearly has no idea what to do with it. "Uh, OK," she says. "See you tomorrow, I guess."

Tomorrow. Shane slumps against the side of her car, overcome. 

 

* * *

 

When she gets home, she almost sends an email right then and there calling out sick tomorrow, or possibly indefinitely, but instead she throws herself onto her bed facedown and fully clothed, half-heartedly trying to smother herself. She mouths the word slugger into her pillow and wonders what the fuck is wrong with her. It’s just Ryan. But the Ryan she knows is gone and some hot mysterious stranger has taken her place. She thinks about the blush on Ryan’s cheeks as their coworkers scrolled through her Tinder matches. She thinks of Ryan’s warm hand on her shoulder and that stupid plum shirt.

In the cold light of morning Shane’s sure this problem will become very surmountable. Ryan is a good friend with a great body but she genuinely believes in spirits. She can’t pronounce the word February. She lives with an army of sorority sisters intent on judging Shane, as if Shane gives a fuck what they think of her. She works with Shane, directly adjacent to Shane. So what if she’s into girls now? So what if she's been walking around all self-assured and, Shane imagines, well-fucked. Good for her, but it has nothing to do with Shane. All Shane has to do is keep making entertaining episodes of Unsolved and keep her eyes and her imagination to herself.

 

* * *

  

Unluckily for her, the research department comprised of their coworkers seems all too willing to help Ryan assemble the clues. What a bunch of jerks. They know Shane can hear everything they say, obviously, since she sits right next to Ryan. She swears they’re delighting in making her sweat, lurking around, draping themselves over Ryan's desk and saying things like, "Wow, what a nice shirt. Is that new? Shane, don't you think Ryan looks nice in this new shirt?"

Shane is left walking the line between continuing to be an irredeemable asshole by insulting Ryan, and fueling the fire with compliments. The little gears in her head churn and churn over every little comment. If this is what it’s like to be Ryan all the time, no wonder she’s always so tired. 

It wasn’t like this the other time, back when they first met, way before any of the ghost-hunting nonsense. They were at a bar, and Shane was pleasantly buzzed, and Ryan kept kind of smirking at her and giving her a hard time about any meaningless thing that came up in conversation. Shane read it as flirting, and she followed Ryan outside afterward and leaned into her, put her hand in Ryan's hair, and kissed her.

Ryan was nice enough about it, a little drunk and a lot surprised. She kind of laughed and said "Uh, what?" and rubbed at her mouth. "That was weird," she said. "Dude, that was fuckin' weird."

Someone who calls you _dude_ probably doesn't want to make out with you, so Shane shrugged it off. It was nothing embarrassing, and she hardly ever even thought about it. Gotta put yourself out there to get anywhere.

She’s thinking about it now. 

It's not that it changes anything to know that Ryan’s into girls. She doesn't like Shane, and their professional lives are completely intertwined, and, it can't be overstated, she doesn't like Shane. But Shane always kind of figured the rejection was more of a "not my thing, no thanks," than a "wow, am I ever not interested in you, particularly."

Even looking back, knowing that Ryan hadn’t been interested, it’s hard not to see Ryan’s behavior that night as flirty. She’d leaned into Shane, talked to her all night, smiled. Outside, when Shane started to lean in, she leaned too. She kissed Shane, touched her earlobe, and then pulled back and acted bewildered, like she was waking up from a bad dream.

Shane can't stop replaying that moment, the moment where Ryan went from happy and well-kissed to something else. She scours it in her memory looking for a clue, as if she were Ryan obsessively editing footage, trying to find the ghosts that aren't there. 

 

* * *

The demon episode takes place at what appears to be a perfectly nice vacation cabin by a little dried up river. As night falls, moths cover the screen door in the back. "Hey, Ryan," Shane says, "which one of these is Mothman?"

Ryan doesn't have the decency to be offended. She smiles and suggests that maybe they all combine together to form the Mothman. 

"Oh, kind of like a rat king," Shane says.

"What the hell is a rat king?"

"Oh boy," Shane says, rubbing her hands together. "What a blessing to be the one to explain this one to you."

Later they crouch by a little wooden trapdoor over a hole in the ground that Ryan says is a direct route to the underworld. Shane imagines a little curly water slide heading to the molten center of the earth. Maybe it would be fire instead of water. "What do you think, Ryan? Wanna slide down the fire slide?"

"And you say I'm crazy," Ryan says, aiming a long-suffering look toward the camera.

" _You_ say you're crazy," Shane corrects. "Like, every time something remotely spooky happens, you say ‘Aaaah, I’m going insane right now.'"  

Of course, Ryan hasn't really done that in a while.

Shane had really been looking forward to the demon episode—the one time she figured Ryan would be completely guaranteed to lose her shit entirely. And sure, she has her holy water holstered, but she still has that weird unshakeable calm. The audio picks up a whooshing sound while Shane pokes around the demon hole with a stick, and Ryan says, “Sweet,” simply pleased to have a new piece of so-called evidence. She says, "C'mon, you have to admit, that sounds like it's saying 'get out.’" Shane admits no such thing, suggesting it sounds more like the air being let out of something, and Ryan just smiles and shrugs. She says, "Well if you're so sure of yourself….” She doesn’t end the sentence.

That night they sleep in the vacation cabin in a bed that’s slightly too hard but essentially unobjectionable. It’s a double, so they’re close, Shane’s elbow inevitably invading Ryan’s personal space. Shane fluffs her pillow, sets up the camera, and gets ready for another night of listening to Ryan whisper her improbable anxieties. They’re all of 30 feet from the demon hole. 

"Hey Ryan," Shane says, turning to face her. She isn’t even sure yet what she wants to say to needle her, but her imagination hasn't failed her yet. Only when she gets a good look at Ryan, she has her arms behind her head in a classic pose of relaxation, and she’s very clearly half asleep.

"What is up with you lately?" Shane asks, hating how accusatory it sounds. Why can't she be kind of cool and lackadaisical about this? Like, _hey Ryan, what's up with you, I want to know but it's not like I care._

"What are you talking about?" Ryan's voice is quiet and slurred from sleepiness. They’re on a property supposedly haunted by demons. It’s midnight.  

"Are you sleepy? Are you seriously going to just roll over and go to sleep? Aren't you afraid a demon will, I dunno, crawl down your throat while you sleep and murder you?"

"That's a really specific fear, Shane."

"That's _your_ fear! You're fucking terrified of this shit!"

"Crawling down my throat, though? There are so many ways a demon could kill me, why did you go straight to that?"

"I don't know, Ryan, you tell me. Why does the nonexistent evil entity want to kill you in the first place?"

“Yeah, I don't know,” Ryan says, her voice a sleepy whisper. Her posture is the dictionary definition of relaxation, as if she were in a mattress commercial or something.

That’s the last straw. Shane sits up in the bed and looks at Ryan, still blinking in tired confusion as if Shane is the one being weird. "You're being _so_ weird," she tells Ryan.

Ryan sits up, too, and she gropes around until she finds her glasses on the bedside table. She says, after a long silence, "Yeah, I know." Then she reaches over to turn off the camera. "You're never gonna believe me," she says. 

"Well, I usually don't." 

"This is like, way beyond aliens, though."

"What, did you hook up with Mothman or something?"

Shane’s only joking, of course, trying to ease the sudden tension in the room, but Ryan is suspiciously silent, and it doesn't seem like she just can’t find the right retort. "Oh my god,” she says. “You really think you hooked up with Mothman."

"Not exactly," Ryan says.

"This might be the worst day of my life," Shane says, throwing her pillow over her face. "I'm alone in a dumb tourist trap in the middle of the night with a girl who thinks she fucked a giant moth."

"Mothman isn't a giant moth and I think you know that." 

"I don't know anything, Ryan! You're the one who fucked him. I hope for your sake he's not a tiny moth."

“Come on, Shane,” Ryan says, clearly frustrated. ”I didn't fuck Mothman!" 

"So what, it was just a little heavy petting?"

"Heavy petting? What is this, the 1950s?"

"Stop trying to distract me from your illicit tryst with Mothman."

"It wasn't Mothman, Shane! It was a ghost, OK?"

"So you fucked a ghost?"

“Yeah, I fucked a ghost. Or I guess a ghost fucked me?"

Well, that’s unexpected. ”If you're about to describe ghost dick, I don't want to hear it, Ryan."

"No, it wasn't like that. It was like... metaphysical. Like, it didn't touch me, it just _touched_ me. Do you know what I mean?"

Shane laughs. ”I say this totally genuinely: I don't think I have ever been farther from knowing what you mean."

"C'mon, Shane."

"I'm serious. This is the most mystifying conversation I have ever had with you. This is dumber than holy water squirt guns and mass alien abduction put together. I feel like I'm going insane just from hearing you talk."

Ryan crosses her arms across her chest, anger written all over her face. ”Yeah, well why do you think I wouldn't tell you about this crazy, like, transformative thing that happened to me, then, huh? When you're so open to hearing my perspective and so supportive?"

"Ryan, I'm listening. So what, you were touched by an angel and now you're not afraid of demons? Is that really your explanation for this?”

"I already said it was a ghost. But I mean, yeah, kind of."

Shane looks carefully at Ryan, who’s still visibly upset, a furrow of frustration in her forehand. ”You’re serious."

Ryan shrugs. "I don't know," she says, suddenly shy. 

"Yeah you do. You know."

She shrugs again, but then admits, "Yeah, I do."

"So what happened?"

"Listen, I'm tired," Ryan says. "I just wanna go to sleep. Can I go to sleep?"

"Sure, you can do whatever you want to do,” Shane says, hearing and hating the pissy tone of her voice. “Just act bizarre, drop a bizarre explanation, and then go to sleep right next to a demon hole. Good night, Ryan. Sweet dreams, I guess.”

“OK, great. Good night," Ryan says, turning onto her side. She doesn't take her glasses back off. Shane wants to reach over and do it for her, but even in this small bed, Ryan seems too far away to reach. 

She turns the camera back on instead. Maybe Ryan will have a nightmare and give them the drama the episode’s lacking, she thinks viciously. Maybe she'll wake up screaming.

 

* * *

 

The next morning is quiet and tense enough that the whole crew notices. They’re done shooting, so it isn’t a huge problem, but TJ keeps shooting Shane looks that say _Hey, what the fuck?_ Shane couldn't answer if she wanted to, so she tries to breeze right along like everything’s fine.

When they stop for gas Ryan buys two bags of cool ranch Doritos and eats them one after the other. Then she downs some YooHoo as a chaser.

"You ever think about how YooHoo is basically just chocolate water?" Shane asks. 

The awkward quiet in the car has more presence than any "ghost" Ryan has ever discovered. After at least a full minute, TJ takes pity on Shane and says something about making microwaved hot cocoa. Ryan just drinks her chocolate water in sullen silence. 

What the fuck. Last night was like a 4 on the weirdness scale, if Shane looks at it objectively. Ryan said she fucked a ghost, Shane called her a crazy weirdo, and they went to sleep. That’s just, like, one notch above their average interaction. Yeah, they kind of argued, but it was nothing a night of good old fashioned sharing a bed in a haunted location couldn't fix. Or at least that's what Shane had thought.

Over the course of the ride back, it becomes increasingly clear Ryan does not feel the same way. She’s genuinely pissed. Halfway through, she puts in headphones, crosses her arms, and looks out the window like some kind of disaffected teen in a movie montage.

Once they get back in town they drop Ryan off first, and on a whim Shane gets out of the car, too. The look Ryan gives her as she slams the trunk shut, Shane's duffel still inside, is almost enough to make her rethink the whole plan, but in the end she’s more afraid of her own imagination than any fight they could have. It's been a long drive, and at this point in the day she keeps imagining Ryan doing some bizarre dance of anger, just, like, slapping Shane in the face with her ponytail. Whatever might happen in Ryan's house, Shane’s pretty sure she isn’t likely to get dramatically slapped across the face with a ponytail. Even if she is, she’d rather get it over with.

Shane kind of bristles every time she enters Ryan's house. Maybe that’s how Ryan feels in supposedly haunted places. It feels like the second she crosses the threshold, she’s distinctly unwelcome, and being watched. Of course, in Shane's case, she genuinely is unwelcome and being watched. Ryan's crew of lifelong friend sorority girls absolutely hate her.

The feeling is mutual, of course, but that doesn't mean she appreciates the way every single one of Ryan's roommates flees the room like a startled bat only to stare suspiciously at Shane from the doorway every time Shane sets foot in this house. She’s asked Ryan about it before and Ryan just said, "Oh, you're too tall, your wraithlike form terrifies them," and then Shane got too distracted ribbing Ryan about what the hell she'd been reading to pick up the word wraithlike to dig in for actual details.

She curses her own short-sightedness now, suddenly certain that if she knew why all of Ryan's friends hated her she could get to the bottom of this whole weird thing they’re going through.

"You don't have to fucking shiver in revulsion every time you walk into my house," Ryan says, throwing her backpack down.

"It's just cold in here!"

Ryan scoffs. "How stupid do you think I am? You never want to come over here."

Well, that’s true. But Shane's place doesn't have a bunch of lurking bat people with perfectly painted nails. "Your roommates hate me, and I find their disgust tedious, that’s all."

"They don't hate you," Ryan says. "Why would they hate you?"

"I don't know,” Shane says, although she has plenty of theories.

"Oh, come on Shane. I'm the one with secrets? You’re so fucking tight-lipped these days you might as well not even be here. Everything we do, everything we talk about, I'm always the one who has to put herself out there and get laughed at. You just get to chill out and make fun of me. You ever think it might mean something to me for you to talk about something that scares you, even if it’s just my friends?”

“I told you about the heroin thing.”

“OK, sure. Something that scares you that might plausibly happen in the real world.”

Shane bites her tongue instead of commenting on whether ghosts and demons count as plausible, real-world fears. This isn’t exactly the time. ”You want to know why I think your roommates hate me?"

"Yeah, I really do."

"OK, fine. I always feel like they know about that time I kissed you, and they think I'm like a workplace harasser or something."

"We weren't even really working together then," Ryan says, in the immediate, defensive way of someone who has made this exact argument repeatedly to her judgmental, hateful roommates.

"Goddamn it," Shane says, throwing her hands up. 

"They don't think you're a harasser," Ryan promises. It isn’t as reassuring as Ryan intends it to be.

Shane stares at the ceiling, trying to figure out how quickly she could get as far away as possible from this stupid house.

"I'm serious, they don't."

"Well, thanks. I feel very reassured and very comfortable."

"I didn't even know you still remembered that. You were pretty drunk."

"I had like three beers. Of course I remember, Jesus. You're short."

That startles a laugh out of Ryan. "What the hell does my height have to do with it? Are you just insulting me now?"

"I wanted to make a clever jibe about you being a lightweight because you're little, but I'm too tired to get there so I just went straight to the point."

"OK, Sasquatch," Ryan says. She smiles, that same little challenging smirk from the night Shane kissed her forever ago. 

"Don't you smile at me," Shane says. "Don't you start smiling. I know you're pissed at me."

"I can be pissed at you and smile at the same time."

"Now you're sounding like one of those serial killers you love so much."

"Yeah, yeah,” Ryan says, rolling her eyes, but a bit of the tension in the room is gone. “Hey, you want a beer?"

"Sure." 

They head to Ryan's kitchen, where Shane observes that the fridge contains only beer, peach-pear La Croix, and a head of lettuce. "Wow, we could have a feast. Fizzy lettuce water for everyone."

"You know what," Ryan says, her mood turning on a dime as she slams the fridge door shut. "Yeah, I _am_ mad. You told me I'm being weird. I'm being weird? Look at you! Don’t try to play normal and make fun of my fucking fridge. All you do anymore is ignore me or look at me like I've been replaced with an alien or something. You called me slugger! What's your deal?"

"I've been trying to figure that out," Shane admits.

Ryan, having apparently expected another non-answer, deflates immediately. She hands Shane a beer and gestures at her to sit down in one of the kitchen's IKEA chairs. "Well, tell me what you've got so far."

At this point, what does she have to lose? She’s been an asshole, and Ryan apparently fucked a ghost. Things are as weird and uncomfortable as they’re likely to get. ”The new you is very confusing to me," Shane says. "I kind of like it, and I also kind of miss the jumping at creaking doors."

"Thanks, jerk," Ryan says.

"I keep thinking about that one time," Shane says, unable to quite bring herself to name the time, but perfectly sure Ryan knows the time she’s referring to. She isn’t likely to think Shane’s talking about a visit to Knott's Berry Farm or something. 

"I've been thinking about it, too, actually," Ryan says.

"Really?"

"I told you about the ghost thing."

"Yeah."

"Ever since that happened I've just felt so... I don't know. Things that used to freak me out don't anymore. All the things that used to be weird or scary or whatever are just… fine. I keep waiting for something terrible to happen, but nothing does.”

“What do you mean? What did it say to you?”

"Nothing. It was silent, and I couldn't see it. But I guess it talked to me, like, telepathically. Because I just knew. It wasn't unhappy, it didn't want to hurt anyone, it didn't want like revenge or to scare me or anything."

"It just wanted to fuck you."

Ryan laughs, as if for once she’s hearing how crazy her theories sound. "Yeah."

"All those years floating around in the spirit realm, it just wanted a girlfriend."

"How did you not go for ghoulfriend there?"

"It's cheap. Too expected. I'm a trailblazer, I can't just take the easy joke."

"Oh yeah," Ryan says, laying the sarcasm on thick. "You'd never go for the easy joke."

"Hey, this comedy genius built your YouTube empire."

"You want to know what it was like, really?"

"I do."

"And you won't make fun of me?"

"I won't."

"OK," Ryan says. She takes a swig of her beer, and Shane can see her trying to figure out how to lay out the story. Where to start, what to include.

"I thought I was having a dream at first," she says, worrying the corner of the beer's label. "A sex dream. When I woke up I was, you know, pretty far gone. I kept feeling these light, tingly touches on me, just, like, my collar bones or my ankles or something. But somehow that was enough." Her face was getting pink, as though the memory embarrassed her or turned her on or both. "I opened my eyes and there was this shape in the corner. Vague, still. But I knew somehow it was looking at me and that it was the thing touching me."

"Did it feel good?" Shane asks. Suddenly it’s the only question she needs answered.

"Yeah," Ryan says, with a little shiver. "It felt so good."

"Yeah," Shane replies nonsensically, like they’re in the middle of dirty talk rather than a discussion of Ryan's ghost encounter. She shakes her head. "I mean, what happened next?"

"I kept thinking, like, this is crazy, I should be freaking out, you know? But I wasn't. Like, my body wouldn't let me. And then I had this, like, almost out of body experience, where all the sudden all I could think about was what I must look like. Like I was the ghost looking at me."

"What," Shane asks, wetting her lips, "what did you look like?"

Ryan's cheeks are red, and she’s almost squirming in her chair, hands gripping the kitchen island. She looks pretty good right now. "Uh," she says, and laughs. "I mean, I looked wrecked. I don't know what you want me to say."

"I want you to tell me what you looked like. I know you remember."

"Uh. Well. I mean, my hands were kind of..." She trails off for a second, looking at what her hands are doing now. "Like this, I guess. In the sheets."

"Yeah," Shane says.

"And I was... panting, I guess."

"Kind of like you are now."

"Uh." Ryan laughs. "I guess so, yeah. And I was, you know, moving." 

"Like you're trying to grind into your chair now?"

Ryan closes her eyes and stills. She laughs again, obviously embarrassed this time. "It was humiliating then, too," she says. "But in the moment, that was kind of working for me."

"So you're saying you looked good," Shane says, taking it all in, the blush on her cheeks, the need evident in every line of her body. "Like you do now."

Ryan slumps in on herself, covering her face with one hand, continuing to grip the counter with the other.

"So what then," Shane says, "How did it make you come?"

Ryan whimpers. "That's all it did," she says. "Just, you know, looked at me, Touched me. Just barely. Not where I wanted to be touched. But it could touch my knee and I'd feel it everywhere."

"That good and it didn't even touch you? You look like you could almost come just thinking about it. Are you that needy?"

Ryan shudders. "Uh," she says, her voice thin. 

Shane gets out of her chair and stands behind Ryan, wrapping one hand around the back of Ryan's neck. She feels a bit like she’s the one having an out-of-body experience, standing in Ryan's kitchen talking about ghost sex, touching Ryan when she’s so turned on like this. "What do you need?" she asks.

"I don't—I..."

Shane uses her other hand to rub one of Ryan's nipples.

Ryan gasps, grinding down hard against her chair.

"Yeah," Shane says. She pinches.

Ryan makes a long, high, desperate sound, curling her shoulders in and moving her hips. Shane feels her tremble. Then Ryan slumps back against the chair, covering her face with her hands again, bright red and embarrassed. "Oh my god," she says. "Oh my god, I can't believe this." 

Shane is still touching her. She tried to pull away, but Ryan makes a little sound that clearly tells Shane to stay put, so she does. “So… this is why you aren’t afraid of demons anymore?”

Shane can feel Ryan’s chuckle. “Kind of crazy, huh? It just kind of changed my perspective, I guess. I don’t know how else to explain it.”

They stay there for a few minutes, while Shane considers all the things Ryan might now be seeing differently, how she might have become someone who doesn't feel compelled to dress like a generic jock and freak out at the mere suggestion of something supernatural. How she became someone who makes out with girls at bars and thinks, apparently, about that time Shane kissed her.

“I don’t think it’s crazy,” Shane says. “I think it’s good.”

"Hey," Ryan says, smiling.

"Yeah?"

"You're looking very Shane today." She seems inordinately proud of herself.

"Oh, wow," Shane says, finally pulling away from Ryan. “That was bad, but I have to respect the effort. Wait, wait, what the fuck—you've seen _The L Word_?"

"Yeah, I mean, I had to do my research, right?"

_The L Word_ as research. Ryan is such a terrible detective. Lucky for her Shane finds it endearing. "Is this you attempt at seduction, Ryan?"  

"Yeah," she says, pushing the sleeves of her shirt up to better show off her arm muscles. "Is it working?"

As a matter of fact, it is. "Are you going to let me fuck you, or are you only into ghosts now?" Shane means to sound cavalier, but it comes out several shades too earnest.

"Hit me up when you're dead," Ryan says, shaking her head regretfully. She manages to hold on to the character for a good three seconds before she gets up and moves in to kiss Shane. Shane is delighted and relieved to note her kissing style is still decidedly un-chill. She kisses like she’s afraid Shane will push her away, even though Shane is basically begging for it. Shane wondered what exactly she’ll have to do to convince Ryan she really wants her, confident she’ll figure it out soon enough.

 

* * *

  

Upstairs on the plaid sheets of Ryan's bed, Ryan palms Shane's chest with one hand and rubs the other along the waistband of her underwear. "Yeah?" she asks, but she doesn’t bother to wait for an answer.

Shane can feel Ryan warm all along her side, one arm reaching out to rub her nipple, the other between her legs. Ryan looks down at her in a way that feels caring but also assessing, like she’s taking in everything Shane does: the gradual tensing of her shoulders, the restless movement of her legs, her shallow breathing. Like she’s being toyed with, in a way, like Ryan is doing to Shane whatever she likes and is recording the results for further analysis.

"A little harder?" Shane asks.

"Yeah," Ryan says. "I know." But she doesn't go harder, not really, not for what feels like forever. She rubs the same slow circles, making Shane push up into her hand, begging with her body.

By the time she speeds up, Shane’s practically panting. She thinks, suddenly, of Ryan alone in her bed, coming untouched, clutching at her bedsheets. “Did it feel it like this?" she asks, wondering if Ryan is trying to—to change her, somehow. Feeling like maybe that’s already happening.

"No," she replies immediately. "This is much better."

When Shane comes, she’s staring up at Ryan’s intent face, Ryan’s breath hot on her cheek. She breathes for a minute, recovering, while Ryan keeps dragging her thumb across Shane's nipple. Shane closes her eyes, then says, "When I open my eyes, you'd better be naked."

It’s gratifying to hear the sounds of Ryan rushing to comply, when a few minutes ago she’d been fully composed and teasing Shane so badly she thought she might just stop breathing entirely. It’s even more gratifying to open her eyes and see Ryan laid out artlessly in the bed, naked and gorgeous. Shane will never be the kind of girl who got super excited about working out, but she can't argue with the results, the evident strength in Ryan's arms, her thighs. 

She touches them, running her hands from shoulders to wrists before crawling down between Ryan's thighs. Ryan spreads her legs wider, anticipating. When Shane puts her head down to bite low on Ryan's stomach, Ryan whines.

Shane grins, then, completely sure she’s about to give Ryan the sexual experience of her life. Move over, mysterious ghost. This one’s all Shane. She opens her mouth to say as much to Ryan, to brag about how completely fucked Ryan is about to be, but then she figures she has better things to do with her mouth.

Ryan is noisy, it turns out. She doesn't say a word, but she has a whole vocabulary of sighs and whines that tell Shane what she needs. She wraps her hand around the back of Shane's neck, petting her. As she gets closer, her nails start to dig into Shane's skin, and her thighs tremble.

"Oh," she says, her shoulders lifting off the bed. She leans up on her elbows, her spine curling, and she comes into Shane's mouth, holding Shane's head against her until she’s finished. Afterward, she flops back down onto the bed, running one hand over her face, smiling helplessly. "Jesus," she says.

"That's very flattering," Shane says. She kisses Ryan before she can groan or roll her eyes or make any kind of retort.

"I can't believe you're like this even after sex," Ryan says.

"I gotta be me, baby. What do you think? As life-changing as ghost sex?"

Ryan laughs dismissively, but then curls into Shane's side. "I don't know," she says, her voice muffled by Shane's arm. "Comparable, for sure."

"You're too kind. Stop whispering sweet nothings to me, I'll get spoiled."

Eventually, Ryan rolls over and looks at her phone. She sighs. “I think the whole crew will be home soon.”

Shane groans. "Oh, they're just going to have a field day with this, aren't they. They're gonna go straight to polishing the shotgun menacingly in my direction. They'll have to get a shotgun first, I suppose, but they're resourceful. Shotguns: not just for overprotective cartoon dads anymore. They’re gonna—“

"No, they like you," Ryan says, patting Shane’s arm reassuringly. "They just thought I was going to get my heart broken." 

That interrupts Shane's vision of all of Ryan's roommates gathered around her in a semicircle, staring balefully and reading out a list of days Shane had put on a hat instead of taking a shower. "Huh?"

"I told you, they know about the kiss."

"How does that answer my question?"

"Just, when we started putting you in videos, and it worked out, they were worried about me. Because they knew about that time, and ever since then I kind of had a little thing for you, and then we started hanging out more….” She shrugs. "You know."

"Are you telling me," Shane says, "that every look of judgment I imagined them giving me was just a product of my imagination based on failed seduction of sorority girls in college, rather than a genuine reflection of their hatred?”

"Not every look of judgment," Ryan says. "They actually do hate it when you wear beanies."

"I knew it! Well, that’s fine, they'll have plenty of chances to enjoy my beanies.”

"Mostly they just, you know….” She looks a bit embarrassed. "I didn't feel like I could just say, like, hey, remember that time we almost made out a little? The time had passed, and I still wasn't really sure what I wanted, so I didn't really just want to dig everything up. But I thought about it. About you."

"And then you got fucked by a ghost and you were a new woman."

"Oh, so you admit it happened!"

"I admit you think it happened, and that the results were favorable to me."

"At least say it's the best evidence so far," Ryan says, pushing her luck.

"Well," Shane says, "I'll tell you this much: it's certainly my favorite."

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Come Into the Water" by Mitski. Sorry about the reference to The L Word--I couldn't help myself.


End file.
